SETI again

> From: Robert
> meaning that first there
> would have to be scouts sent out to see if a planet was colonizable,
> or if the system had the resourses to handle a O'Neil type
> civiliation. then after spending all that energy and resourses to
> send out a new colony the old system would demand that the new one
> send back resourses to pay for the effort.

This assumes that construction of a Daedalus probe would be extortionately
expensive for an O'Neil type civilisation. I really don't think it will be.
(They will after all be used to building large effecient rocket engines.)
Especially if many of them were built at once. A generation or two after
NASA's current proposal for planet finders, telescopes might be able to make
the same observations from a distance.

John